News and analysis on politics, human rights and civil society in Latin America by Geoffrey Ramsey

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Honduran President Wants a ‘Plan Colombia’ for Central America

In an interview with Mexican paper
Excelsior on Monday, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez hinted that
he believed his country deserved the kind of U.S. security aid programs implemented in Colombia and Mexico in recent years. Since floating this initial trial balloon, he has been
much more direct.

At a forum on regional migration issues in
Tegucigalpa yesterday, Hernandez called for a surge in aid to the Northern
Triangle countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, saying “one has to
recognize that our countries can't do it alone.” From Reuters:

Honduran Foreign Minister Mireya Aguero
told the conference efforts to step up security at the U.S. border were not
working and that U.S. aid would be better spent in Central America.

"It's much more practical for the
United States to launch a mini-Marshall plan, as they did after World War Two,
to create opportunities and really get to the root of the problem in Central
American countries that is fueling migration," she said.

…

Hernandez, who took office in January after
pledging to crack down on crime, said U.S.-backed battles against cartels in
Colombia and Mexico have pushed drug traffickers into Central America,
increasing violence, which is causing the exodus.

Yet he underlined the success of U.S.
efforts in Colombia.

"Today, for example, Plan Colombia is
showing major success. It was worked on together, those generating demand for
drugs in the north and those producing drugs in the south assumed joint
responsibility and it was effective," he said.

According to El
Heraldo and La
Tribuna, a U.S. aid package was the first item of Hernandez’s four-point
proposal to stem the northward flow of Central American migrants, and one of
two which would require action by U.S. policymakers. The other is the adoption
of a “clear” immigration policy in the United States, and a regional
communication campaign to explain it to Central American residents (potentially
like the one currently
being funded by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol). Hernandez also proposed taking apart migrant smuggling routes and border "blind spots," and the implementation of a plan to re-settle deported migrants in their countries of origin.

For the moment, it does not seem that there
is any political will in the United States for a major aid push in Central
America. Of the $3.7 billion in funding that the Obama administration has requested
to address the immigration crisis on the border, less
than $300 million would go to address the root causes behind immigration in
Central American countries. Rather than promising new aid, Reuters reports that
Simon Henshaw, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for population,
refugees and migration, said international and regional development banks
should take on the task of spurring development in the region.

News Briefs

Following up on yesterday’s
post, it appears that Ecuadorean national drug agency CONSEP on Monday released updated
regulations (.pdf) for the country’s reformed penal code which lay out four
categories of drug possession, based on certain quantities for each substance
and corresponding with sentences ranging from two months to 13 years. Somewhat surprisingly, the new regulations
are significantly tighter than the guidelines published by CONSEP last year,
which recommended
pressing no criminal charges against offenders caught with “minimal” quantities
of illicit substances (e.g. less than
ten grams of marijuana, one gram of cocaine, or one-tenth a gram of heroin). While
these guidelines still apply, under the new regulations those who possess minimal
quantities could still face between two and six months in prison. Ultimately,
it seems Ecuador’s
2008 constitutional reform which redefines drug use as a public health problem
rather than a security issue is still far from being a reality on the ground.

On Tuesday, Mexican security forces in the southwestern
state of Michoacan raided a shelter in the city of Zamora, freeing
nearly 500 children and some adults from appalling conditions, including imprisonment
as well as physical, sexual and psychological abuse. As the BBC reports, families
of children housed in the shelter had long complained about conditions there,
and Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam has announced an investigation
into these allegations. Animal Politico points out that the case highlights
a lack of government oversight over the work of such shelters around the
country.

In recent years, Salvadoran news site El Faro’s Sala Negra section has
earned a reputation for publishing quality in-depth reporting on crime and insecurity
in the country. It was responsible for breaking the story of the truce between
MS-13 and Barrio 18 prison gangs, and has uncovered evidence of a
high-level crime
syndicate known as the “Cartel de Texis.” Now, it appears that the site’s
work has struck a nerve. El Faro reports that Sala Negra editor Oscar Martinez
was detained yesterday afternoon by narcotics police, who interrogated him
about the sources of his reporting on organized crime and the Cartel de Texis,
among other things. The police reportedly claimed they had “orders from the top”
to question him, and El Faro has posted an editorial calling for an
explanation.

News site Plaza
Publica reports on Guatemalan President Otto Perez’s approach to
anti-mining protests in the country, which has essentially framed the mining
opposition as a part of a national security strategy.

The upper house of Chile’s Congress voted
on Tuesday to
approve a tax reform measure, a pillar of President Michelle Bachelet’s
campaign for office. The Wall
Street Journal describes the 33-1 vote as “a return to a more traditional
consensus approach in Chilean politics.”

An anonymous military source has confirmed
to the AP that Pentagon officials have notified Congress of plans to
transfer six Guantanamo Bay detainees to Uruguay. If the plan holds, Uruguay
will become the first South American country to accept detainees from the U.S. military
base.

NACLA has a good overview of the efforts by
Uruguayan activists to fight a push from conservative sectors in the country to
lower
the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16, a proposal that has
considerable support in Uruguay and will be on the ballot in this October’s general
election. This week brought good news for the “No
a la baja” campaign, led by a coalition of Uruguayan human rights
organizations. While past polls have consistently shown majority support -- ranging
from 57
to 65
percent -- for the ballot initiative, a new survey suggests the campaign
may be having an impact. A poll published this week by Factum shows that for
the first time, public opinion
over lowering the age of criminal responsibility is split nearly evenly:
with the number of those firmly decided either in favor or against tied at 39
percent.

Writing for Foreign
Policy’s Transitions blog, Juan Nagel offers a snapshot of the Venezuelan
opposition. While recent weeks have seen a flurry of reporting regarding potential
splits
in the ruling United Socialist Party, Nagel paints a picture of the
opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable that reveals just as many internal
disputes, with the main dividing issue being whether or not to fuel street
protests in a bid to oust President Nicolas Maduro.

Following his visit to Haiti earlier in the
week, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon traveled to the Dominican
Republic yesterday, where he urged legislators to adopt a more comprehensive solution
to last year’s ruling effectively denying
citizenship to thousands of people of Haitian descent. While a law promising
to resolve the legal status of those affected was passed in May, human rights
advocates in the country say
its impact will be limited. In his statement, Ban urged lawmakers to go
further, saying doing so would require them to use their “compassion as human
beings and as leaders of this country.” Both EFE
and the AP
note, however, that some lawmakers were indignant at his remarks, describing
them as interference in the country’s internal affairs.

In exchange for Russia’s decision to
forgive 90 percent of Cuba’s Cold War-era debt, officials in Havana have
reportedly agreed to allow the re-opening of a Russian electronic surveillance post on
the island. The New
York Times reports that Russian lawmakers have confirmed the news, since
issuing statements praising “what seemed to be a step by Russia toward
re-establishing a military presence in Cuba.”

About The Author

Geoff Ramsey works as a communications officer for the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). Before joining WOLA, Ramsey worked as a researcher for the Open Society Foundation’s Latin America Program. His most recent work involved monitoring civil society advocacy for and implementation of 2013 drug policy reforms in Uruguay, where he lived for nearly two years. Prior to that he spent two years living in Colombia and Brazil, where he researched and reported on regional insecurity issues for InSight Crime. Any views or opinions expressed in these posts are the sole responsibility of the author. Email: gramsey (at) thepanamericanpost (dot) com